italics—“_The collection can aim at no lower object than to exhibit the whole development of the art of painting; the examples of which it consists must therefore range over its whole history!_” The “ςηματα λυγρα” of Zellerophon were not of a more deadly character than would the contemplated collection be to all true notions of the Beautiful in art—the collection of inhumanities, the doleful horrors of saints and demons, and worse and more awful representations which preceded perceptions of the Beautiful. We ought to be glad to learn from any who know better than ourselves, but we very much question if our perpetual appeal to the practice of foreign galleries, in the way in which it is made, is at all a healthy sign. We are not sure that some of the examples we seek may not rather be warnings. It is a confession of imbecility and mistrust in themselves of trustees and commissioners. Foreign architects, foreign directors, and foreign galleries, bear too prominent a part in our blue-books and our pamphlets. We are confident in our own men, if not in the “intelligent public.” We have men quite able to devise galleries, and to know how to fill them. The misfortune has been, not that we lack men of ability, but we do not employ them. And why? Our governments have no better taste, no better knowledge, no better desires, with regard to the arts, than the “intelligent public.” They have never entertained serious views upon the subject. In conclusion, we would ask if the series of Hogarth’s pictures have been removed from our National Gallery, on which they conferred an honour and importance of a kind that no other gallery in Europe can boast of possessing, with the object of forming a chronological series of the British school. We hope to see them transferred to their old places. Our National Gallery should not be deteriorated, to give a grace to Marlborough House, however much it may want it. THE REFORM BILLS OF 1852 AND 1854.